U.S. News: San Francisco Top Ranked For Best-Paying Jobs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — If you like a jumbo paycheck, you're in the right place. Twenty-one cities in the United States are considered among the best for those looking for a well-paying job, according to a new U.S. News ranking. Leading the list are San Francisco and San Jose, with Vallejo, Santa Rosa and Napa also representing the Bay Area. Down in Monterey County, Salinas also made the Top 20 ranking.

U.S. News compiled the list of cities with the best-paying jobs by examining the annual mean salary of each job included on its 2020 Best Jobs Rankings, then tallied which cities had the most available positions associated with top-paying jobs nationwide.

Wichita Falls, Texas, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and La Crosse, Wisconsin, were at the bottom of the list.

Here are the 21 cities that rank in the top five most frequently:

1) San Francisco, California - 77 jobs
2) San Jose, California - 64 jobs
3) New York, New York - 43
4) Bridgeport, Connecticut - 29
5) Seattle, Washington - 27
6) Vallejo, California - 23
7) Washington, D.C. - 22
8) Salinas, California - 21
9) Chicago, Illinois - 18
10) Anchorage, Alaska - 17
11) Oxnard, California - 16 (tie)
11) Sacramento, California - 16 (tie)
13) Boston, Massachusetts - 15 (tie)
13) Santa Rosa, California - 15 (tie)
15) Houston, Texas - 14 (tie)
15) Urban Honolulu, Hawaii - 14 (tie)
17) Napa, California - 13
18) Trenton, New Jersey - 12 (tie)
18) Los Angeles, California - 12 (tie)
20) Boulder, Colorado - 11 (tie)
20) Kahului, Hawaii - 11 (tie)

The top five best-paying jobs of 2020, according to the new study, are anesthesiologist, surgeon, oral and maxillofacial surgeon, obstetrician and gynecologist, and orthodontist. Salaries were taken from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Along with the best-paying cities, U.S. News also released its 2020 Best Jobs Rankings. Among this year’s best jobs are software developer at No. 1, followed by dentist, physician assistant, orthodontist and nurse practitioner.

To calculate this year’s best jobs, U.S. News collected data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to identify jobs with the greatest hiring demand. Jobs are then scored using seven component measures: 10-year growth volume, 10-year growth percentage, median salary, employment rate, future job prospects, stress level and work-life balance. For further details on how the rankings were calculated, see the methodology.

For people who want to dive into the workforce after high school, U.S. News also calculated the best jobs without a college degree. Home health aid ranks No. 1, followed by medical assistant and medical records technician. A majority of the jobs in this list’s top 10 are health care support positions.